A Study on the Generation of Humor in TV Drama from the Perspective of Conversational Analysis

The corpus of popular TV dramas in China, such as The Journey to the West, I Am Powerful, Long Men Escort, Smile Around the World, and Wonder Lady are taken as examples to explore the generation mechanism of humor in TV dramas that have not been noticed so far from the perspective of conversational analysis. It can be observed that violations of Grice's Cooperative Principle (such as flouting the maxims of quantity, quality, relation, or manner), Leech's Politeness Principle (including intentional face-threatening acts), and the use of conversational extensions in TV series can create a disparity between the audience's conventional understanding and expectations and the actual content. This contrast typically results in the generation of humor. Case analyses demonstrate how this interplay between expectation violation and reality contrast operates across different genres, from historical fantasy (The Journey to the West) to workplace sitcoms (Smile Around the World). The findings suggest that humor in Chinese TV narratives systematically exploits pragmatic norms and discourse patterns, offering insights for both media studies and comedy scriptwriting.